1. Duncan
   Moderator
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   It's a shame everyone still thinks of their commute in terms of time and not of "quality." My commute by TTC takes FOREVER (OK, just under 2 hours) but in that time I get to read, listen to music and enjoy my coffee. My commute by bicycle is just over an hour, and I'm getting a great cardio workout to start my day (when I'm not choking on exhaust fumes). By car, my commute was 35 miserable, stressful, expensive minutes... I'll take the extra time to enjoy the beginning of my day, thank you!

   1. What Would It Take To Get You Out Of Your Car

      2009/09/22 | CityNews.ca Staff

      What would it take to get you out of your car?

      If you’re reading this at work or at school, it’s probably too late to think about – but Tuesday marked international Car-Free Day.

      Toronto is among hundreds of cities in Canada and around the world celebrating the pollution-busting event.

      But it doesn’t work for everyone.

      On Breakfast Television, one woman revealed that her commute was 15 minutes by car – and a full hour if she took the TTC.

      But others had a much different experience. Jesse Hollington wrote on Twitter, “I sold my car three years ago and haven't looked back. I use Autoshare for rare times I really need a car, but otherwise TTC.”

      Car-Free Day began in Europe in 1999 and Toronto was the first North American city to join in 2001.

      The initiative has highlighted an ongoing problem in the city: there aren't enough bike lanes and yet some of the existing ones are underused.

      Eastern Avenue is one such corridor. At the height of rush hour, it's nearly empty.

      "This bike lane is the stupidest thing I've ever seen," noted motorist Garfield Richards.

      "I bike and I would never bike on this street."

      But on College Street, it's just the opposite: cyclists whiz by alongside cars.

      "It's really good because it's a heavily-trafficked area so it's a great way to get to work," praised one cyclist.

      LINK

   Duncan's City Ride - That's my blog about cycling in the city of Toronto, natch!

2. jeff
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   more proper bike lanes where people actually need them. that don't just end suddenly for no apparent reason. with a curb separating from traffic.

3. lOCk
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   They missed the bit about when your young daughters have lung problems and the doctor attributes the situation to bad air quality...

   Well, worked for me anyway.

4. Duncan
   Moderator
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   Wow lOCk... that's certainly some motivation.

   Duncan's City Ride - That's my blog about cycling in the city of Toronto, natch!

5. lOCk
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   The 20th century motorized carriage kills in many ways:
   http://www.thestar.com/article/578714
   Some snips:

   Jan 29, 2009
   No one can point to a specific reason, but the sharpest rise in Type 2 diabetes this past decade in Ontario has been in women aged 20 to 49.

   "No, it's not great news," says Dr. Lorraine Lipscombe, whose research at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, based on healthcare data from Ontario between 1995 and 2005, revealed the startling facts. "And we aren't really sure what's going on or where it's coming from."

   Lipscombe's research showed that Type 2 diabetes is up 70 per cent in the adult male and female population with the obvious spike in young women – a startling 108 per cent increase.

   She says we're living in a sedentary world with oversized food portions and that the powers that be aren't acting enough on the epidemic.

   "Our neighbourhoods are designed for cars – not walking..."

6. lOCk
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   Nice video on the LA Times site today. Should be of interest to Toronto folk fighting against more diseasel trains on the western rail corridor:

   A new crop of eco-warriors take to their own streets

   tks
   Loc

7. AnnieD
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   In answer to the original question, "Selling it!" I know that wasn't the intent of the original question, but that's where we're at right now. We want to get rid of our car but don't know the best way to sell it. And when you do have a car, there are lots of times when it's much, much, cheaper to go somewhere by car than it is to take the TTC. Any advice?

8. joe
   Admin
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   Hey Annie, my wife and I use the combo-system of car-free life... biking when we want... TTC when it's more convenient, Zipcar when we need a car for just a few hours (at $10-$12 per hour), or a rental if we are taking a trip somewhere.

   For the record we LOVE zipcar. Even if I have to go to Home Depot every weekend (which I do now that I'm rebuilding our porch), and it's a couple of hours each time (more than enough time for me to browse the Depot and load up the car with what I need - so about $25 once a week - WAY cheaper and less stressful than owning. :)

9. Duncan
   Moderator
   Posted 3 years ago #
   

   I had to get beyond the belief that a trip in my car was cheaper than transit, even long distances.

   My calculations were solely based on how much I'd spend on gas. So, when debating a trip to Montreal, I'd think that if I carpooled and we split gas it would be way cheaper than taking the bus or train, and faster. But, I should have been adding the cost of insurance, license renewals, oil changes, CAA membership, cleaning my car, and maintenance on the darn thing over time. It's a bit messier calculation, but considering the amount of money I put in to that car every year, it would have been (and has been since I became car-free) much less expensive to take public transit.

   I don't have any advice on selling a car though. I gave mine to my brother who then got in to an accident and insurance bought out the car.

   Duncan's City Ride - That's my blog about cycling in the city of Toronto, natch!

10. toddtyrtle
    Moderator
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    We do the same thing as Joe. And really, given the actual cost of the car (I seem to recall CAA estimating $9K/year) how much more expensive is it (2 metropasses/month = $218 + maybe $10 in kids' tickets)? Even when I was buying the GTA pass weekly it was still *way* less than I spent on car expenses. And my metropass never says "Surprise! You need a $800 repair!" when I'm least ready for it.

11. joe
    Admin
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    Yeah... the CAA says the average car costs 9,000 per year (PDF file).

    So, that's $750 per month, per car.

    We have family and friends that think we are nuts for paying what we did for a house on the subway line, when the same money could've gotten us a pretty large house in the 'burbs... but what they don't seem to think of is that living in the burbs necessitates the ownership of 2 cars to do anything for a couple.

    That's $9,000 per car, per year. $18,000 per year.

    Even if we lived in the burbs for only 10 years - that's $180,000 in 2009 dollars that we'd have to spend to live in the burbs.

    If we lived there from now to retirement at 65 - that's 30 years, or $540,000 in 2009 dollars.

    That kind of money I'd rather put into just about anything else... vacations, quality of life items, RRSPS...

12. AnnieD
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    You guys misunderstood. In my post, I was referring specifically to making the one-time decision of whether or not to go to the mall, theatre, whatever, by car (cost of gas) versus TTC ($4.50 round trip per adult + $3.70 for one student + $1.40 for one child = $14.10 for the family). The point is, once you *own* the car, it's cheaper for a family to use it than to go by TTC.

    As for the bigger picture comparison, twice in the past I've done the calculations to decide whether or not to get rid of the car. Both times, it worked out to be cheaper to keep it than to get rid of it. The $9000/yr must include car payments. When I did the calculations, we owned our car so no payments, but it was still on warranty so maintenance was minimal. Insurance amounts I've seen reported are also higher than we've ever paid. Even when the warranty first ran out, maintenance was still low and it's only now that major components are failing that it's becoming more expensive, and even then we only spend an average $430/month on everything car related, including big trips. One of the biggest costs of getting rid of it will be the rentals to go camping and rental/bus/train/flight to visit family (I did my calculation based on a rental, which was the cheapest option).

    At this point, we could hang on to the car a few more years but we don't like doing the long distance trips using a car that might "cack" halfway so if we're going to rent anyway for the trips, then it's cheaper to get rid of it. Since Ralph borders on obsessive in his management of our budget, we'll be able to make a very accurate comparison of the amount of money we spend on transportation once we get rid of the car and I can report back in a year. :)

    It's really too bad that the TTC pass is more expensive than tokens for going to work M-F. Growing up in Montreal, if you used transit to get to work, it was cheaper to get a pass, which meant everybody had one and any extra trips were gravy. There's got to be some cost savings to the system due to the much smaller number of people using tickets which need to be processed. OTOH, we bike most of the year, and with Ralph working evenings (I HATE the idea of him riding home at 1:00am on the viaduct among the speeding partiers) and me in the day, we'll probably do well in January sharing a pass and using tickets for overlapping trips.

    We'll be getting our Used Vehicle Information Package in the mail soon and then, I dunno Craigslist??? I'll keep you up to date. :)

    Annie

13. joe
    Admin
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    Ah... okay... you mean if you already have a car that is paid off, etc. :)

    I guess it also depends on where one lives as well. Living on a subway line makes it pretty easy to get anywhere else on the subway lines.... living on a streetcar line less so... and on a bus route out in the middle of nowhere... then the "how valuable is my time" calculations start when waiting eternities for a bus to come. Especially in winter.

14. toddtyrtle
    Moderator
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    Funny - and I'm always coming at it from the other side - the failing car well past the warranty.

    We usually do a single metropass and both carry a few tokens to cover those times when we go out at the same time. Since moving closer to downtown, though, we're needing to use transit less and less. That'll likely change when the weather cools down and our idea of a pleasant walk is a much shorter distance.

    Still, $430/month seems pretty high - almost twice what two metropasses cost. I rent cars often for work (the only way to get to more distant clients) and I could rent a car for a week and get 2 metropasses for that.

    And of course the best part for me about not having a car? The expenses are what they are. Fare increases are infrequent (and not that large), whereas you never know when your car is going to decide to give you a big bill.

    Preaching to the choir, I know :-)

15. Militant MTBer
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    Annie said:

    "I was referring specifically to making the one-time decision of whether or not to go to the mall, theatre, whatever, by car (cost of gas) versus TTC ($4.50 round trip per adult + $3.70 for one student + $1.40 for one child = $14.10 for the family). The point is, once you *own* the car, it's cheaper for a family to use it than to go by TTC."

    Sorry, I agree.

    We own our car (yup, bought and paid for - we're such rebels). It's a 2002 Nissan Sentra that has 114,000 kilomteres on it. It has been to MEXICO - AND - BACK (4300 kilomteres and $380 in gas on the return trip in August!).

    There have been times where we thought about taking the TTC and we tallied that the adult return trip would be a cash expense of $11. A return taxi trip would have been far more. We wanted to go only a short distance to Canadian Tire at Yonge + Church. The car wouldn't use anywhere near $11 worth of fuel to go from York and Queen's Quay to Yonge + Church and back. Also, parking there is free. So, opting for economics, we took the car (gasp!).

    There is another instance where we sometimes go to Metro (formerly Dominion) at Market Square on Front Street. I hate that store but 'she' likes it for the Air Miles. Sobeys is directly next door, but doesn't give out Air Miles. Believe me, it leads to contention. I digress. If the weather is lousy, we'll take the car for a one-way, 2 kilometre trip for the same reason that it's not worth $11 on the TTC. And parking is free if you spend X amount. We usually spend above X amount.

    Now you'll say, "Why don't you just buy tokens or tickets and save?" Well, we have, and don't regularly as 'she' works directly across the street at Bay and Queen's Quay. A 5 minute walk. As for me, I use the bike.

    I had read an article some time ago that the TTC should come up with a way to, perhaps, meter your trip and charge you accordingly rather than the flat rate that they currently have, which is sometimes, simply not worth taking the TTC. I keep thinking of $30 an hour wages here and why the TTC won't implement such a plan. Aren't there some other transit systems that currently meter your trip or charge you for the distance travelled?

    They tell me that I have ADD. They just don't underst...Hey look! A Chicken!!

16. toddtyrtle
    Moderator
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    There are many (including the TTC in older days, I'm told) that use zoned fares. Vancouver does a pretty cool thing - they use zoned fares and timed transfers. So a one zone fare is $2.50, two is $3.75 and three is $5. During off-peak hours the whole city becomes a single zone. The zone map looks like this:
    
    The difference, though, is that once you pay your fare you get a ticket stamped with an expiration time 3 hours after purchase. So you could conceivably go out, do your grocery shopping, and return on a single fare. Alternately you could pay the single fare and use it to do a bunch of errands downtown and then go home instead of paying $2.75 every time you wanted to do another one. As far as I know they were (and maybe still are) experimenting with this idea on St. Clair but I could be wrong.

    Problem with the zoned fares here is that it would cost quite a bit in new fare collection tech and enforcement. Now if they ever got around to doing smart cards like many major transit systems this would not be an issue.

    Oh and I just noticed - there's a bit of discussion about the use of zoned fares in Toronto here.

17. Militant MTBer
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    Joe said:

    "...the CAA says the average car costs 9,000 per year."

    That average is like the polls and surveys based on 1,000 I loathe.

    Let's see....

    Insurance $130 per month = $1560
    Licence sticker = $74
    'Toronto Tax' on top of the license sticker fee = $60
    Fuel (as little as we drive it) = $480 ($40 a month x 12 - and that is a generous average)
    Oil changes (synthetic) = $120 ($60 twice a year as the car isn't driven much)
    Total = $2295 ($191 mnthly) - MAX.

    If I didn't have the car, yeah, that would 2295 a year that I wouldn't have to spend. But it's a far cry from the purported 9000 that the CAA is flinging around.

    They tell me that I have ADD. They just don't underst...Hey look! A Chicken!!

18. toddtyrtle
    Moderator
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    True - I'd also add in repairs, other wear parts (tires are the biggest one) but still that's not another $7K

    That said, I had a used car when I moved here and I estimate that we would have spent between $600-800/month. It was a gas hog, only took super unleaded (so about $75+ to fill the tank to go about 450-500 KM), had relatively high miles and was expensive to fix. Plus we're new immigrants so every company I talked to said our driving records as far as the insurance folks were concerned started at zero experience and quotes were in the mid $200-300/month range for liability only.

    I drove it from our home in Missouri to here, drove it once to work and then called up a public radio station in the states and donated it to them. (because of import laws I couldn't even *give* it away here legally) They came and picked it up and I haven't owned a car since.

19. Militant MTBer
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    Hey Todd,

    Found this....

    TTC needs to rethink its flat-rate fares (March 13, 2009)

    snippet:

    Presently the TTC subway services about 75 km of track. One of its subway lines and its extension can carry passengers from Kipling Station, in Etobicoke, to the centre of Scarborough -- a total of 36 stops and about 35 km -- all for a single, flat-fare of $2.75.

    Trouble is, other riders going a much shorter distance, say from Union Station to Dundas Square -- a total of three stops and about 1.5 km -- pay exactly the same price for a fraction of the distance travelled.

    This article is speaking to me in that last sentence.

    Full article:

    http://www.torontosun.com/comment/2009/03/13/8737106.html#/comment/2009/03/13/pf-8731516.html

    So much for that

    Zoned fares not in TTC plans (Sept. 24, 2009)

    snippet:

    With talk of a TTC price hike in the air, some critics wonder why the commission isn't talking about a zoned-fare system that would charge more to riders who travel greater distances.

    GO Transit already uses such a system and the coming Presto "smart card" would make it possible to implement the system on the TTC.

    But zoned fares aren't coming to Toronto any time soon, say TTC officials.

    Full article:

    http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/700150

    Switching our public transit system to a zoned fare arrangement (i.e. what you pay is proportional to how far you travel) is not part of the plans for the TTC. Why not? It's difficult and expensive to make the switch, and the revenue model is revenue-neutral. Um... wouldn't a revenue-neutral model be better than our current model, which apparently creates greater deficit with increased ridership?

    They tell me that I have ADD. They just don't underst...Hey look! A Chicken!!

20. AnnieD
    Member
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    We're pretty sure we've reached the point now where repairs are high enough (thus the $430/month, which used to be quite a bit less) that getting rid of the car is worth it. In addition to rentals to visit family (New Brunswick) and a couple of camping trips/year, our Autoshare costs are going to be a bit on the high side because Ralph regularly has to haul stuff (sets, costumes, concessions) for the theatre. The boy child doesn't use children's tickets anymore, and the girl child will be 13 soon too. :)

21. Duncan
    Moderator
    Posted 3 years ago #
    

    Now, this is only my opinion and pure speculation. But, should the TTC ever introduce fares based on area traveled, I'm guessing that the current (or current at the time) base fare would be the starting point. So, say any travel south of Bloor would be $2.75 and then you'd build on that. I doubt fares zones would be broken down so that you could travel for say $1.75 from Osgoode Station to Queen Street Station by streetcar. But, that's just my own guess.

    I really appreciate hearing everyone's stories on how you're mixing transportation. As an unmarried, childless, mortgageless, student debt carrying guy continuing to have a car and living in the city made no sense. Even though I have a long commute, the costs of maintaining a dying car simply did not justify my having it. While I doubt I ever reached the $9,000 a year to have a car, there were years when I'd say I met at least half that through repairs, gas, insurance, more repairs and then some more repairs.

    As a side note, I also really enjoy not being "the guy with the car" and no longer dealing with people mooching rides. There was always this scenario, "Hey, can you give me a ride home?"
    "Sure."
    "OK everybody, he's giving us a ride home."
    "Crap."

    Duncan's City Ride - That's my blog about cycling in the city of Toronto, natch!

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